David Klein oral history transcript

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INTERVIEW WITH DR. DAVID KLEIN
BY ROGER KAYE DECEMBER 12, 2002
MR. KAYE: This is a taped Oral History interview with Dr. Dave Klein conducted on
December 12, 2002 by Roger Kaye. Dr. Klein for providing this interview. I’d like to
start with the present. Perhaps you could give a biographical sketch of your life? What
brought you to Alaska? What your career was, and what lead you to that career path.
DR. KLEIN: Since it was a long time ago, and a lot has happened since I first came to
Alaska, it can’t be too brief. But I’ll try to keep it brief. It was in 1947 that I first came
to Alaska. I got out of High School in 1945 and then enlisted in the Navy at the end of
the Second World War, which was soon over. Then, I worked briefly with the
Connecticut Forestry Department in Connecticut for a year. During this time some of
my co-workers and I talked of the idea of coming to Alaska as a travel adventure. So I
bought an old Model A Ford Roadster that had an engine that as being overhauled. I did
finish the overhaul work. Then, two of us drove to Alaska in this Model A Ford
Roadster in 1947. I spent a full year in Alaska. I had an opportunity to go in to the
Brooks Range and some of the areas that are part of the Arctic Refuge now, in the Wild
Lake area. I sort of fell in love with the country almost instantaneously.
MR. KAYE: Was that a recreational trip?
DR. KLEIN: We did. I was a young, and enthusiastic and had a young fellows interest in
the possibility of establishing some hunting-fishing lodge in the Arctic. But it was
probably twenty years before it’s time. The other people that I got involved with were
probably just as idealistic as I was, but not realistic business people. We built a cabin up
at Wild Lake and spent a few months there. We did hunting and fishing and then came
back to Fairbanks. I worked hard to pay back some of the money we had to borrow to
pay for aircraft charter to get there. I then decided that my future wasn’t in that. It
would be going back to the University and studying Wildlife Biology, which at that earlier
age I didn’t really know that there was a program of that nature. I spent the winter here
in Fairbanks and worked at the Agriculture Experimental Station and took a couple of
courses at the then University, which had about 350 students at the time. Then I drove
back out in the Ford to Connecticut did an undergraduate degree in Wildlife Management
at the University of Connecticut. I came back to Alaska to do a Masters Degree because
the Cooperative Wildlife Unit had been established in 1950. I came back in 1951 to begin
my graduate studies for a master’s degree, which I did. I got drafted again into the Korean
War. I spent a year in the Army in Alaska doing scout work out in the bush. This was
very enjoyable but I didn’t enjoy being in the Army. I got my first permanent job in
Southeast Alaska working as a Biologist with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which
had responsibility for wildlife management prior to statehood. I worked mainly with
Bear ecology and then also some studies on Bear habitat use on Admiralty Island and
some work with Mountain Goats, Moose and other species. At Statehood, I had the
option of leaving Alaska with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service because they no longer
involved in managing the wildlife in Alaska but I decided to stay and transferred to the
States new Department of Fish and Game. This was with the understanding that I could
take some educational leave to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia but
doing research with the [unintelligible] here in southeast Alaska. That worked out fine,
but it was tough because I had a family by then. Financially, it was tough going but we
did it. I came back to Alaska with the family in 1961 and still had a thesis to write. I
worked in Juno for a year with the Alaska Fish and Game Department as their Federal
Aide in Wildlife Restoration Research Coordinator. Then the position of Unit Leader at
the University of Alaska at Fairbanks opened and I applied for that. I was accepted and
moved in 1962 to become the Unit Leader while I was still finishing up my Ph. D. degree,
which I did within the year. I remained there as Unit Leader until it was melded with the
later established Cooperative Fishery Unit, into the Cooperative Fish and Wildlife
Research Unit. Then, I moved into the position of Senior Scientist. I was with that unit
until 1997 when I retired from Federal service. I then received an emeritus Professor
appointment with the University. I continue to do a lot of the same kind of work, but on
my own schedule. I work with Graduate students. Mainly during my time with the
University and Co-op Unit and the Fish and Wildlife Unit I was advising large numbers of
Graduate student and mentored over 60 Masters and Ph. D. students that have received
degrees here. So that’s a quickie. My research interests have taken me all over the Arctic.
I’ve spent quite a bit if time in Canada and Greenland and Scandinavian countries working
mainly with hoofed animals like Musk ox, Caribou and Reindeer. There has been some
work with domestic Reindeer and wild Reindeer in Siberia. There have been a few other
excursions to Portugal and South Africa.
MR. KAYE: Who are some of the people, or perhaps writings that influenced your
professional development?
DR. KLEIN: Oh, of course there are a lot of people, especially with evolution and
ecological theory, which has been an underlying consideration in most of my ecological
research. While started out with a big emphasis on [sounds like] ungulates, and especially
deer, and I have continued to work with them to a large extent, it’s been the relationship
of those animals to their environment including the population ecology, but also habitat
relationships. I think from standpoint of wildlife biology and management one of the
most influential persons in my life, although I never met him, was Aldo Leopold. He was
alive when I was at the University doing undergraduate work. His wildlife management
book, for example, was the standard guide for our courses there. I was also introduced to
some of his more environmental philosophy writing and thinking, which had quite a bit of
influence on me then. But I think it’s the kind of influence that has continued and
developed and grown as I matured in my work and became more philosophically oriented
toward my work in the environment and the role of humans in relationship to the
environment.
MR. KAYE: Specifically, what are some of the ideas or philosophies that Leopold
espoused that touched you?
DR. KLEIN: I guess I was impressed by Leopold for a lot of reasons. But obviously he
was very pragmatic in understanding what was needed in the United States, or North
America at the time, in the management of wildlife. This meant a change in some other
attitudes. But he was pragmatic in realizing that it was the people who had a large voice
in what was happening. Therefore you had to convince people that using good science
might be necessary to change practice and policies. I was always impressed by Leopold’s
ability to learn and change with time based on his own experiences and gaining the
knowledge that he did. It’s obvious in some of his writings about his attitudes toward
predator control when he was first employed by the Forest Service in the southwest,
where he sort of agreed with the general consensus that most predators were varmints
that should be eliminated because they were killing the ungulates which were the main
goal for harvest by humans. But he changed in not too long of a period of time in that
work. It became obvious to him that large carnivores were important components of eco-systems,
and that there might be some justification for their management, but not
necessarily elimination. Then, when he did his travels and studies in Germany he was
very impressed by some aspects of the efficiency of wildlife management in Germany. I
think what impressed him there was the recognition that wildlife was product of the land.
The landowners could then derive income and the landowners were very contentious in
trying to manage in an affective way. But he was very disappointed, and certainly didn’t
approve of their attempts to manage so intensively that they eliminated predators. They
also resorted to artificial feeding without understanding what the consequences would be.
In other words, they were managing intensively without understanding the ecological
relationships of the animals. When he came back, he recognized that while things were
different in terms of both how the people relate to wildlife in North America, but also
how the natural environment was considerably different than the very manipulated
environment in many areas of Western Europe.
MR. KAYE: You mentioned ecological evolutionary process. It reminds me of a famous
quote of Leopold’s. He said, “ We are only fellow travelers with the other species on this
odyssey of evolution.” What do you think he meant by that?
DR. KLEIN: I think that comes out in his land ethic; that a land is something that is
permanent, whereas we, as individuals are not permanent. We spend our lifetimes here
and raise our families and carry out our activities. We affect the land. And we can affect
the land in a neutral way or in some cases, even in a positive way. But we can also affect
it in a negative way so that its potential productivity in the future may be decreased or
eliminated. And that’s the point that I think comes across most strongly in Leopold’s
land ethic. Respect for the land is necessary if we are going to leave the value of the lands
for future generations. I think that is still very much lost in modern society by people
who focus so heavily on the productivity of the land without appreciating that they may
be degrading the productivity by their actions. Intensive agriculture where they may be
using so many pollutants through pesticides and fertilization, the productivity of the soils
may be going down in the long run, even though short-term productivity is maintained.
MR. KAYE: I know a few years ago, you received the Aldo Leopold Award. I wonder if
it’s due in part to your sense that biology and ethics need to be connected. Is that what
you are suggesting here?
DR. KLEIN: That’s part of it. I hope its part of it, let’s put it that way. I think that I
have tried to avoid being an environmental activist based on emotion. I have tried to be an
environmental activist based on sound science. In doing so, then I have tried to make the
connection between the viability of ecosystems and possible human effects on those
ecosystems. I think the connection is an important one. And Leopold is a good example.
Many of the people whom he influenced, not just me, but many others who were his
colleagues and went on to carry on some of his work, also espoused those same thoughts
and feelings. That, I think is particularly apparent here in Alaska where we now have a
lot of areas set aside as national interest lands which are the products of efforts by many
people of this nature. Of course some of the early ones include Robert Marshall, the
Muries, especially Olaus and Mardie Murie they played an extremely important role.
But also many of my mentors here in Alaska who were with the Fish and Wildlife Service
who were people, some of them are not alive, like David Spencer who I worked for during
the first summer when I came to Alaska as a student. I worked down there on what was
at that time the Kenai National Moose Range. It is now Kenai Wildlife Refuge. I had the
advantage of learning from him who had been affected so greatly by Aldo Leopold.
MR. KAYE: It is interesting. Dave Spencer is the one who brought the wilderness idea
to the Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska here. What do you remember? What is most
notable about Spencer to you?
DR. KLEIN: I think one of the most notable, or, the most notable thing was humility.
Dave came across as someone who had a wealth of knowledge and experience but you had
to dig it out of him. He wasn’t one of the old-timers who acted as if he knew it all. He
didn’t and he was very modest and quite, but a very deep person. Also he was an
extremely competent and capable person who could do virtually anything. He was
perhaps most famous for his piloting ability. I flew many times with him. They were
exciting times of counting Mountain Goats in turbulent weather. He would drop me off
in various places to do ground counts. He regretted frequently that he couldn’t join me,
but sometimes he did. It was really a good experience for me. He also did what at the
time I didn’t appreciate very much; he put responsibilities on my shoulders that I thought
I wasn’t capable of doing. It turned out that I did them, and it was good for me because I
learned how to do them. So he was a good kind of a guy to work with.
MR. KAYE: How about Marshall? Have you read Marshall’s work? Did that touch
you when you went to Wild Lake?
DR. KLEIN: I hadn’t read it until after I had been to Wild Lake. Then, I definitely read it
with keen interest. I have reread his work in Arctic Village and his other works. I think
that one of the things that has impressed me both about Robert Marshall and Muries is
that they were focused on the natural environment, but they also had the ability to
interact with the local people whether they were the native people or the early miners and
prospectors. They shared similar values and appreciation for the land. Many of the
early prospectors and miners loved what they were doing. Gold was an excuse to be
there. If they found it, well, they didn’t want to give up living those lifestyles. It was a
different time and people thought and lived differently then. I think that the adaptability
to life in those conditions, which were not easy, and yet enjoying those kinds of lives and
sharing the experiences were what I came across strongly with both Marshall [and the
Muries]. They were keen observers both Olaus Murie and Robert Marshall. They were
just keen observers of virtually everything they were seeing, the people as well as the
natural environment; the vegetation, the plants and animals and their interrelationships. I
am considered somewhat of an expert on Caribou. I have worked with Caribou perhaps
more than with other ungulates in my professional career. The person who I consider has
had the most influence relative to my work in Alaska has been Olaus Murie. He was
really such an outstanding biologist working under condition where he had to do virtually
everything. And he had to deal with all kinds of wildlife. He saw things in the context of
their ecological and evolutionary relationships rather than just it’s fun to look at or study
Bears or Wolves or Caribou. It was fun to study them. And I appreciate that myself.
But part of the study and motivation for the study and incentive to do the work he did
was to try to understand how they fit into the environment. That, to me was the message
that was particularly important. I was fortunate in having a chance to get to know Olaus
Murie when I was a graduate student here the University. I was working the summer
times for the Fish and Wildlife Service as a technician doing section aide and composition
counts on Mountain Sheep in the mountains throughout most of Alaska. That was a
wonderful kind of experience that any young, budding biologist would just love to do.
Between trips to the mountains, I would at the dorm where I had a room during the
winter semesters. In the summer time, some of those rooms were rented out like a mini-hotel
for scientists or others who were coming through the area. Olaus Muris stayed in
our dorm, the old main dorm on campus.
MR. KAYE: What year was this?
DR. KLEIN: This was in 1952. Olaus Murie was there. He was traveling a bit but he
would be in there and sometimes our paths would cross. It was pretty characteristic in
the evenings after we had dinner in the cafeteria we would sit on the front steps of the
building on these nice summer evenings and just talk. Olaus would be there and of course,
what us grad students wanted to do was to get Olaus to talk, and we did. Again, he was a
humble person, like Dave Spencer. But, when we students questioned him, he was glad
to respond and convey some of this experiences and knowledge to us. That was a rich
experience for all of us. And it had a large affect on me. In reading some of his work, I
could appreciate how important his observational abilities were in producing the quality
work he did. He spread himself over such broad areas; working in the Alaskan peninsula,
the Aleutian Islands and southeast and the interior of Alaska. Primarily my interests
were in his work with Caribou throughout Alaska.
MR. KAYE: Would you say that Olaus influenced your thinking then, and your career?
DR. KLEIN: Yes, he influenced me not so much to focus on Caribou, but how one
proceeds to gain knowledge. He was working in a period when we didn’t have a lot of the
new technologies that we have now, such as radio collars and aircraft monitoring of
animals. Techniques for analysis, DNA tests for example, was available so we weren’t
able to understand population interrelationships or species interrelationships. And yet,
without those tools, he carried on good science not just descriptive science, but
interpretive science as well. Descriptive science was what was the standard of the day at
that time. And he did that, but he also did interpretive work and explained relationships
that he saw through keen observation and assessment of data that he collected in the field
directly. I guess the message that was most important was that it’s the hands on, in the
field, close observation of wildlife that pays off in the long run. If it’s not part of the use
of new technology, then something drastic is missing in the results, using the technology.
Whereas, if you don’t get into the field and you frequently can’t see these nuances of the
relationship of these animals to their environment that are so critical, yet are so difficult
to collect remotely from aircraft or satellite collars or what have you.
MR. KAYE: When we look at Olaus’ writings, they seem similar to Leopold’s in the
sense that he’s able to meld the biological scientific values with what we might call ethical,
aesthetic, or what Olaus might call intangible values. Is that your sense?
DR. KLEIN: Yes, I think there are some pronounced differences between the two men.
But I think that in many ways, that’s true. There is a real similarity. They saw more
than just interpreting nature when they were in the environment and writing about the
environment. They also had this sense of its influence on humans and how that influence
occurred and what were the possible mechanisms. I think that Olaus Murie saw more
direct role of the human relationship to the environment, or maybe put more emphasis on
scientific understand of what is out there and what’s happening. Then, Aldo Leopold
used that methodology and wrote about it, but it was not his major emphasis in his
writings. It was more the development of the overall philosophy of human relationship
to the environment and to the world in which we live. Whereas, I think Olaus was more
focusing on understanding both our biological relationships to the environment as well as
our mental and our emotional and philosophical relationships associated with natural
areas.
MR. KAYE: Being specifically related to what became the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge now; Did you have a chance to talk to Olaus about what his motivations may be
for what he did? What specific values that he thought this area possessed, that was
worthy of that effort?
DR. KLEIN: I can’t say that I questioned him specifically. I was a student then and
didn’t have probably the maturity to frame effective questions of a senior person who
had the knowledge to pass on this information. However, in our discussions with him
much and some of this definitely came across. In my follow up readings of some of his
writings it enabled me to better interpret what he had actually said when we were in
conversation on another. I think what all of us young students, working to become
wildlife biologists, felt when we were with him was that he shared his, and we shared our,
appreciation for opportunities to do the kind of work that he did and what we hoped to
do to a much greater extent than we had done. He already had the sense that we shared
some of his values. And we definitely knew that this was the case. But I think that
definitely some of his ideas did come across, and definitely influenced us well.
MR. KAYE: When we read Olaus’ writings about the Range, and it was largely advocacy
in the late 1950s. He seems to focus more on the area of maintaining evolutionary and
ecological processes than just its value for specific animals and wildlife. What is your
sense of the importance of these processes if maintaining a place where these could be
perpetuated?
DR. KLEIN: I think that, I guess that I share with him that feeling with him, for the
Arctic Refuge as an example, that to appreciate it’s values from a human perspective one
has to have an appreciation for what’s happening there; what the ecological relationships
are and what the whole system is. Rather than just feeling awe over being in a wild place.
Unfortunately or fortunately, whatever the case may be, it’s hard to separate the two.
You can go into places and have this feeling of awe that these places aren’t greatly altered
or with no apparent alteration by humans. That is, I admit, a value in itself. But it’s a
value that relates to a bias that already may exist in our minds about how we feel
environments should be. At least how a natural environment should be, especially we see
in it partly (biologists probably have a tendency to see) in a natural environment these
biological relationships and then it’s hard to draw the line between and understanding and
appreciation of those relationships and the beauty of unspoiled nature. They are hard to
separate. I am not sure that it is necessarily desirable to do it. I think Olaus Murie’s
major focus on protecting the Arctic Refuge was on the value of the Refuge as a place to
understand both what is going on there, and humans in relation to the environment. And
rather than just keeping it as unspoiled nature. He felt that humans could perhaps mark it
up a bit, but only to a very minimal amount in trying to understand it. In other words,
making tracks, possibly setting up vegetation plots and things of this nature. Science, he
felt, was critically important in a place like the Arctic Refuge to understand the
ecosystem relationships that exist there. A detailed understanding does require a human
presence. And human presence more so, rather than just walking through the area and
maybe appreciating nature, but without having a known impact on it.
MR. KAYE: I have been intrigued with constant use of the word evolution, and talking
about processes that have governed and created life as we know it. He used phrases like
that which suggest that beyond the relationships currently, he was perhaps interested in
maintaining an area where evolution could continue on it’s own way, unfolding in a
creative way that we don’t know. Do you have a sense of that?
DR. KLEIN: Yes, I think that’s one of the things that both Leopold and Murie…they
understand and believed that change is a natural process in nature. Humans frequently
accelerate changes or create changes in the environment some of which can be very
detrimental to humans well being as well as to the environmental processes that are going
on. But I think that Leopold and Murie both put a lot of emphasis on the fact that
changes occur and that instead of there being a balance in nature that was common.
People commonly spoke at the time of balances in nature of plants and animals in balance.
And animals in balance and don’t overeat their range, etc. And predators and prey are
somewhat in balance. I think it is more realistic, and I think they did too, to recognize
that there is an imbalance and fluctuations over time. And that basically on a human
perspective things may appear as balanced but there is a process of change going on. You
consider that, within species as evolution and within ecosystems you can use the term
evolution, but you can say that it is adaptation and change and development or perhaps,
“evolution” of the whole system. Change was a process that was going on. I think more
recently with a lot of research looking at the past geological and paleoentological history
of places like Alaska we recognize that there has been major change that has occurred just
since the Pleistocene glaciation not to mention the changes going on during the Pleistocene
glaciation, and that process of change is still going on. I have been working recently on
accessing, a project to try to access climate change in the Arctic on wildlife and how that
may influence management and conservation of wildlife in the Arctic. It is obvious that
there is a changing climate globally, but it is much more pronounced in the Arctic than
elsewhere. Change has occurred in Arctic in the past, and we’ve seen populations,
especially in the high Arctic Islands coming and going over time. Then, peri-Caribou, or
Musk Oxen as well as other species disappearing completely on some islands and then
repopulating themselves. We are talking about time intervals of fifty to a hundred years
rather than just a decade or two which from the standpoint of management of wildlife, or
more important obviously when people have to wait a hundred years to hunt Musk ox
again, those people are no longer around to do it.
MR. KAYE: Were you here in Fairbanks in 1957 when Olaus and Mardie came through
largely to promote the establishment of the Arctic Refuge?
DR. KLEIN: No, I wasn’t. I was working in southeast Alaska. I was aware that they
were through, and I was in touch with what was going on. I had been a student with
George Schaller who was an undergraduate student at the time when I was a graduate
student here. But he was like one of the grad students because he was so motivated
toward the outdoors and wildlife that we all hung around together.
MR. KAYE: Tell me more about George Schaller. What was your impression of him at
that time? Was he a standout among students? Was he different?
DR. KLEIN: George was a standout among students. I think he was so assertive and so
motivated. Probably, some others might have classified him as having tunnel vision so
that he was only focused on wildlife and nature. But those of us who knew him better
knew that this was not the case. He certainly had this tremendous vitality and energy and
he was the kind of young person who you couldn’t help but like even though you might
feel he was a competitor, and that he was going to outshine you. He was I remember
when he was a student he would take off frequently on the weekends by himself with a
twenty-two rifle and he’d been gone the whole weekend. This was in the summer and he
wouldn’t take any sleeping bag, or anything. He’d just take naps and stay light all of the
time. We’d ask him since he hadn’t taken any food, what he had eaten. He said, “I ate a
grouse”. “Well, did you build a fire?” “No, I just ate it raw.” George was just one of
those who would do anything. And some of it you could say was just to impress other
students, and that may have been part of it, but that was what George wanted; to explore.
Exploration was really important to George. Once, I think in the summer of 1953 or
1952, I was working doing some composition work on Caribou in the Naltina herd in the
Talketna Mountains. We needed a field assistant and George was sent out and worked
with us. He was just excellent. We’d be out counting Caribou and we’d have to take
turns looking through the spotting scope and the other taking notes. We had finished a
hard days work and George would hike back to our camp and have a meal. George would
rush through the meal and say, “Is it ok if I take off for a few hours?” By this time it’s
nine or ten o’clock at night. It’s light all of the time in summer of course. So George
takes off and does probably a fifteen-mile hike, comes back in time for maybe an hour or
two of sleep. He kept up an extensive schedule like that. And he’d always come back
and tell us what he had seen. A Snowy Owl nest or, some unique aspects of landscape,
or a lake that we didn’t even know existed, and birds that were nesting around there. He
was just a keen observer. He was certainly an enjoyable guy to have around.
MR. KAYE: Interesting! He told me his interview about his ten-day hike when he was
on the Sheenjeck expedition. He went off by himself basically exploring, and we talked a
little bit. I’d like to ask you about your sense, in terms of the Arctic Refuge, of it’s being
a place of recreation, of course that’s one of the purposes of it. Olaus talked about it.
But it was a very special kind of recreation, a place where one could explore and discover.
What is your sense of the recreational significance? What type of recreational experience
do you think the Arctic Refuge should provide?
DR. KLEIN: Well, I would say that it should provide a diversity of recreational
experiences because people aren’t all the same. I think that some people might be
attracted there to have a recreational experience, which enables them to appreciate some
of the mountain landscape and the wildlife and flora in the mountain landscape. And one
thing about the Arctic Refuge is that the focus has been primarily in recent years on the
coastal plain, which is so crucial to the whole ecosystem. But nevertheless there is
tremendous diversity from the Arctic coastal plain, the north slope of the Brooks Range
Mountains, the south slope with forests beginning and some of the plateau areas above
tree line near Arctic Village, and the big lake systems. All of these could a focus of
attention for people who want to have an experience. From my own interests, I am
interested by diversity and I like mountain landscapes. But I have done an awful lot of
work in the coastal plains because there is biological diversity even though the coastal
plain has really benign topography; it’s fascinating because it’s so important in the whole
complexity of ecosystem relationships. There are multiple species and vegetation and its
attractiveness to Caribou and other species. I’d say that it would be highly variable.
Some people like George Schaller and I’d probably put myself in that category, are at
heart also explorers. We like to see new things that we think are unexplored. And it’s
understood by other people that if we had been, a half a century or a century earlier, we
would have been pushing into the Arctic to try to reach the North Pole and those kinds of
things, just for the exploration expect of it; to have a goal that you want to achieve. I
think that it’s a combination of those, in all people. But it varies from individual to
individual. Some people are out to test themselves physically. I am not all that excited
about supporting that kind of use of wilderness areas. On the other hand, frequently
those people become real appreciative of the wilderness values once they experience
them.
MR. KAYE: We talked about the Muries, and Marshall and Schaller. How about some
of the Alaskans? The conservation community here that galvanized around the Arctic
Refuge issue through the Alaska Conservation Society. Were you involved in that issue
in that group of people?
DR. KLEIN: Yes, I was involved in it and perhaps not as much as some of the others
who stayed here while I was in southeast Alaska. I was out of it for a while, and when I
came back I became quite involved. Some of the earlier people like John Buckley, who
was a Unit Leader when I came here and was my Advisor during my Master’s work here.
He was certainly very active with sporting groups, sportsmen, and the Tanana Valley
Sportsman’s Association. He was very active in that. He was trying to get them to
appreciate the importance of sound biological research and its good towards wildlife
management. He recruited Fred Dean, I think, who was a faculty member here. He also
recruited Jim Reardon who was on the faculty as well. I think then there were others that
came later like Bob Wheedon who was with the Department of Fish and Game here and
played an important role in development of the conservation movement. Of course Celia
Hunter and Jeannie Wood were key players in the development. Those people were sort
of leaders within a larger community of environmentally oriented people largely
associated with the University, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and previously
the Fish and Wildlife Service. There was a real community of people, and that provided
sort of encouragement for everyone. There was a sense of community; people working
together for what they believed in. We were all certainly products of the influence of
people like the Muries and Aldo Leopold and others; Starker Leopold and Frank Darling
who spent time in Alaska had influence on us, as well as many others.
MR. KAYE: I’d like to get to Starker Leopold and Darling in a minute. As far as this
Fairbanks community goes; Jeannie Wood tells me that the Alaska Conservation Society
was the first Alaskan based conservation group. It was largely coalesced around the
effort to set aside what became Arctic Refuge. Do you recall that time, and how that
issue played into the development of an Alaskan based conservation community?
DR. KLEIN: That was definitely the case. And I think the Arctic Refuge was a focus for
that development. But it wasn’t just the Arctic Refuge. There were other issues that the
Alaska Conservation Society got involved with was this Project Chariot. It was the
proposal to use atomic bombs to blast a harbor in northwest Alaska, and which became
very controversial. It became controversial within the University system because the
University was involved in doing some of the research on the potential biological effects
of a nuclear blast there. There was some unfortunate division within the University
because money was coming in to support the research, which was good research but there
were constraints on how the findings of that research would be used. That’s when people
like Lesburg and Bill Pruitt, who was a neighbor of mine when he was here, those two
took very active role in bring this issue to the attention of the public. Ultimately ….
[side A ends, nothing recorded on side B]

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INTERVIEW WITH DR. DAVID KLEIN
BY ROGER KAYE DECEMBER 12, 2002
MR. KAYE: This is a taped Oral History interview with Dr. Dave Klein conducted on
December 12, 2002 by Roger Kaye. Dr. Klein for providing this interview. I’d like to
start with the present. Perhaps you could give a biographical sketch of your life? What
brought you to Alaska? What your career was, and what lead you to that career path.
DR. KLEIN: Since it was a long time ago, and a lot has happened since I first came to
Alaska, it can’t be too brief. But I’ll try to keep it brief. It was in 1947 that I first came
to Alaska. I got out of High School in 1945 and then enlisted in the Navy at the end of
the Second World War, which was soon over. Then, I worked briefly with the
Connecticut Forestry Department in Connecticut for a year. During this time some of
my co-workers and I talked of the idea of coming to Alaska as a travel adventure. So I
bought an old Model A Ford Roadster that had an engine that as being overhauled. I did
finish the overhaul work. Then, two of us drove to Alaska in this Model A Ford
Roadster in 1947. I spent a full year in Alaska. I had an opportunity to go in to the
Brooks Range and some of the areas that are part of the Arctic Refuge now, in the Wild
Lake area. I sort of fell in love with the country almost instantaneously.
MR. KAYE: Was that a recreational trip?
DR. KLEIN: We did. I was a young, and enthusiastic and had a young fellows interest in
the possibility of establishing some hunting-fishing lodge in the Arctic. But it was
probably twenty years before it’s time. The other people that I got involved with were
probably just as idealistic as I was, but not realistic business people. We built a cabin up
at Wild Lake and spent a few months there. We did hunting and fishing and then came
back to Fairbanks. I worked hard to pay back some of the money we had to borrow to
pay for aircraft charter to get there. I then decided that my future wasn’t in that. It
would be going back to the University and studying Wildlife Biology, which at that earlier
age I didn’t really know that there was a program of that nature. I spent the winter here
in Fairbanks and worked at the Agriculture Experimental Station and took a couple of
courses at the then University, which had about 350 students at the time. Then I drove
back out in the Ford to Connecticut did an undergraduate degree in Wildlife Management
at the University of Connecticut. I came back to Alaska to do a Masters Degree because
the Cooperative Wildlife Unit had been established in 1950. I came back in 1951 to begin
my graduate studies for a master’s degree, which I did. I got drafted again into the Korean
War. I spent a year in the Army in Alaska doing scout work out in the bush. This was
very enjoyable but I didn’t enjoy being in the Army. I got my first permanent job in
Southeast Alaska working as a Biologist with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which
had responsibility for wildlife management prior to statehood. I worked mainly with
Bear ecology and then also some studies on Bear habitat use on Admiralty Island and
some work with Mountain Goats, Moose and other species. At Statehood, I had the
option of leaving Alaska with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service because they no longer
involved in managing the wildlife in Alaska but I decided to stay and transferred to the
States new Department of Fish and Game. This was with the understanding that I could
take some educational leave to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia but
doing research with the [unintelligible] here in southeast Alaska. That worked out fine,
but it was tough because I had a family by then. Financially, it was tough going but we
did it. I came back to Alaska with the family in 1961 and still had a thesis to write. I
worked in Juno for a year with the Alaska Fish and Game Department as their Federal
Aide in Wildlife Restoration Research Coordinator. Then the position of Unit Leader at
the University of Alaska at Fairbanks opened and I applied for that. I was accepted and
moved in 1962 to become the Unit Leader while I was still finishing up my Ph. D. degree,
which I did within the year. I remained there as Unit Leader until it was melded with the
later established Cooperative Fishery Unit, into the Cooperative Fish and Wildlife
Research Unit. Then, I moved into the position of Senior Scientist. I was with that unit
until 1997 when I retired from Federal service. I then received an emeritus Professor
appointment with the University. I continue to do a lot of the same kind of work, but on
my own schedule. I work with Graduate students. Mainly during my time with the
University and Co-op Unit and the Fish and Wildlife Unit I was advising large numbers of
Graduate student and mentored over 60 Masters and Ph. D. students that have received
degrees here. So that’s a quickie. My research interests have taken me all over the Arctic.
I’ve spent quite a bit if time in Canada and Greenland and Scandinavian countries working
mainly with hoofed animals like Musk ox, Caribou and Reindeer. There has been some
work with domestic Reindeer and wild Reindeer in Siberia. There have been a few other
excursions to Portugal and South Africa.
MR. KAYE: Who are some of the people, or perhaps writings that influenced your
professional development?
DR. KLEIN: Oh, of course there are a lot of people, especially with evolution and
ecological theory, which has been an underlying consideration in most of my ecological
research. While started out with a big emphasis on [sounds like] ungulates, and especially
deer, and I have continued to work with them to a large extent, it’s been the relationship
of those animals to their environment including the population ecology, but also habitat
relationships. I think from standpoint of wildlife biology and management one of the
most influential persons in my life, although I never met him, was Aldo Leopold. He was
alive when I was at the University doing undergraduate work. His wildlife management
book, for example, was the standard guide for our courses there. I was also introduced to
some of his more environmental philosophy writing and thinking, which had quite a bit of
influence on me then. But I think it’s the kind of influence that has continued and
developed and grown as I matured in my work and became more philosophically oriented
toward my work in the environment and the role of humans in relationship to the
environment.
MR. KAYE: Specifically, what are some of the ideas or philosophies that Leopold
espoused that touched you?
DR. KLEIN: I guess I was impressed by Leopold for a lot of reasons. But obviously he
was very pragmatic in understanding what was needed in the United States, or North
America at the time, in the management of wildlife. This meant a change in some other
attitudes. But he was pragmatic in realizing that it was the people who had a large voice
in what was happening. Therefore you had to convince people that using good science
might be necessary to change practice and policies. I was always impressed by Leopold’s
ability to learn and change with time based on his own experiences and gaining the
knowledge that he did. It’s obvious in some of his writings about his attitudes toward
predator control when he was first employed by the Forest Service in the southwest,
where he sort of agreed with the general consensus that most predators were varmints
that should be eliminated because they were killing the ungulates which were the main
goal for harvest by humans. But he changed in not too long of a period of time in that
work. It became obvious to him that large carnivores were important components of eco-systems,
and that there might be some justification for their management, but not
necessarily elimination. Then, when he did his travels and studies in Germany he was
very impressed by some aspects of the efficiency of wildlife management in Germany. I
think what impressed him there was the recognition that wildlife was product of the land.
The landowners could then derive income and the landowners were very contentious in
trying to manage in an affective way. But he was very disappointed, and certainly didn’t
approve of their attempts to manage so intensively that they eliminated predators. They
also resorted to artificial feeding without understanding what the consequences would be.
In other words, they were managing intensively without understanding the ecological
relationships of the animals. When he came back, he recognized that while things were
different in terms of both how the people relate to wildlife in North America, but also
how the natural environment was considerably different than the very manipulated
environment in many areas of Western Europe.
MR. KAYE: You mentioned ecological evolutionary process. It reminds me of a famous
quote of Leopold’s. He said, “ We are only fellow travelers with the other species on this
odyssey of evolution.” What do you think he meant by that?
DR. KLEIN: I think that comes out in his land ethic; that a land is something that is
permanent, whereas we, as individuals are not permanent. We spend our lifetimes here
and raise our families and carry out our activities. We affect the land. And we can affect
the land in a neutral way or in some cases, even in a positive way. But we can also affect
it in a negative way so that its potential productivity in the future may be decreased or
eliminated. And that’s the point that I think comes across most strongly in Leopold’s
land ethic. Respect for the land is necessary if we are going to leave the value of the lands
for future generations. I think that is still very much lost in modern society by people
who focus so heavily on the productivity of the land without appreciating that they may
be degrading the productivity by their actions. Intensive agriculture where they may be
using so many pollutants through pesticides and fertilization, the productivity of the soils
may be going down in the long run, even though short-term productivity is maintained.
MR. KAYE: I know a few years ago, you received the Aldo Leopold Award. I wonder if
it’s due in part to your sense that biology and ethics need to be connected. Is that what
you are suggesting here?
DR. KLEIN: That’s part of it. I hope its part of it, let’s put it that way. I think that I
have tried to avoid being an environmental activist based on emotion. I have tried to be an
environmental activist based on sound science. In doing so, then I have tried to make the
connection between the viability of ecosystems and possible human effects on those
ecosystems. I think the connection is an important one. And Leopold is a good example.
Many of the people whom he influenced, not just me, but many others who were his
colleagues and went on to carry on some of his work, also espoused those same thoughts
and feelings. That, I think is particularly apparent here in Alaska where we now have a
lot of areas set aside as national interest lands which are the products of efforts by many
people of this nature. Of course some of the early ones include Robert Marshall, the
Muries, especially Olaus and Mardie Murie they played an extremely important role.
But also many of my mentors here in Alaska who were with the Fish and Wildlife Service
who were people, some of them are not alive, like David Spencer who I worked for during
the first summer when I came to Alaska as a student. I worked down there on what was
at that time the Kenai National Moose Range. It is now Kenai Wildlife Refuge. I had the
advantage of learning from him who had been affected so greatly by Aldo Leopold.
MR. KAYE: It is interesting. Dave Spencer is the one who brought the wilderness idea
to the Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska here. What do you remember? What is most
notable about Spencer to you?
DR. KLEIN: I think one of the most notable, or, the most notable thing was humility.
Dave came across as someone who had a wealth of knowledge and experience but you had
to dig it out of him. He wasn’t one of the old-timers who acted as if he knew it all. He
didn’t and he was very modest and quite, but a very deep person. Also he was an
extremely competent and capable person who could do virtually anything. He was
perhaps most famous for his piloting ability. I flew many times with him. They were
exciting times of counting Mountain Goats in turbulent weather. He would drop me off
in various places to do ground counts. He regretted frequently that he couldn’t join me,
but sometimes he did. It was really a good experience for me. He also did what at the
time I didn’t appreciate very much; he put responsibilities on my shoulders that I thought
I wasn’t capable of doing. It turned out that I did them, and it was good for me because I
learned how to do them. So he was a good kind of a guy to work with.
MR. KAYE: How about Marshall? Have you read Marshall’s work? Did that touch
you when you went to Wild Lake?
DR. KLEIN: I hadn’t read it until after I had been to Wild Lake. Then, I definitely read it
with keen interest. I have reread his work in Arctic Village and his other works. I think
that one of the things that has impressed me both about Robert Marshall and Muries is
that they were focused on the natural environment, but they also had the ability to
interact with the local people whether they were the native people or the early miners and
prospectors. They shared similar values and appreciation for the land. Many of the
early prospectors and miners loved what they were doing. Gold was an excuse to be
there. If they found it, well, they didn’t want to give up living those lifestyles. It was a
different time and people thought and lived differently then. I think that the adaptability
to life in those conditions, which were not easy, and yet enjoying those kinds of lives and
sharing the experiences were what I came across strongly with both Marshall [and the
Muries]. They were keen observers both Olaus Murie and Robert Marshall. They were
just keen observers of virtually everything they were seeing, the people as well as the
natural environment; the vegetation, the plants and animals and their interrelationships. I
am considered somewhat of an expert on Caribou. I have worked with Caribou perhaps
more than with other ungulates in my professional career. The person who I consider has
had the most influence relative to my work in Alaska has been Olaus Murie. He was
really such an outstanding biologist working under condition where he had to do virtually
everything. And he had to deal with all kinds of wildlife. He saw things in the context of
their ecological and evolutionary relationships rather than just it’s fun to look at or study
Bears or Wolves or Caribou. It was fun to study them. And I appreciate that myself.
But part of the study and motivation for the study and incentive to do the work he did
was to try to understand how they fit into the environment. That, to me was the message
that was particularly important. I was fortunate in having a chance to get to know Olaus
Murie when I was a graduate student here the University. I was working the summer
times for the Fish and Wildlife Service as a technician doing section aide and composition
counts on Mountain Sheep in the mountains throughout most of Alaska. That was a
wonderful kind of experience that any young, budding biologist would just love to do.
Between trips to the mountains, I would at the dorm where I had a room during the
winter semesters. In the summer time, some of those rooms were rented out like a mini-hotel
for scientists or others who were coming through the area. Olaus Muris stayed in
our dorm, the old main dorm on campus.
MR. KAYE: What year was this?
DR. KLEIN: This was in 1952. Olaus Murie was there. He was traveling a bit but he
would be in there and sometimes our paths would cross. It was pretty characteristic in
the evenings after we had dinner in the cafeteria we would sit on the front steps of the
building on these nice summer evenings and just talk. Olaus would be there and of course,
what us grad students wanted to do was to get Olaus to talk, and we did. Again, he was a
humble person, like Dave Spencer. But, when we students questioned him, he was glad
to respond and convey some of this experiences and knowledge to us. That was a rich
experience for all of us. And it had a large affect on me. In reading some of his work, I
could appreciate how important his observational abilities were in producing the quality
work he did. He spread himself over such broad areas; working in the Alaskan peninsula,
the Aleutian Islands and southeast and the interior of Alaska. Primarily my interests
were in his work with Caribou throughout Alaska.
MR. KAYE: Would you say that Olaus influenced your thinking then, and your career?
DR. KLEIN: Yes, he influenced me not so much to focus on Caribou, but how one
proceeds to gain knowledge. He was working in a period when we didn’t have a lot of the
new technologies that we have now, such as radio collars and aircraft monitoring of
animals. Techniques for analysis, DNA tests for example, was available so we weren’t
able to understand population interrelationships or species interrelationships. And yet,
without those tools, he carried on good science not just descriptive science, but
interpretive science as well. Descriptive science was what was the standard of the day at
that time. And he did that, but he also did interpretive work and explained relationships
that he saw through keen observation and assessment of data that he collected in the field
directly. I guess the message that was most important was that it’s the hands on, in the
field, close observation of wildlife that pays off in the long run. If it’s not part of the use
of new technology, then something drastic is missing in the results, using the technology.
Whereas, if you don’t get into the field and you frequently can’t see these nuances of the
relationship of these animals to their environment that are so critical, yet are so difficult
to collect remotely from aircraft or satellite collars or what have you.
MR. KAYE: When we look at Olaus’ writings, they seem similar to Leopold’s in the
sense that he’s able to meld the biological scientific values with what we might call ethical,
aesthetic, or what Olaus might call intangible values. Is that your sense?
DR. KLEIN: Yes, I think there are some pronounced differences between the two men.
But I think that in many ways, that’s true. There is a real similarity. They saw more
than just interpreting nature when they were in the environment and writing about the
environment. They also had this sense of its influence on humans and how that influence
occurred and what were the possible mechanisms. I think that Olaus Murie saw more
direct role of the human relationship to the environment, or maybe put more emphasis on
scientific understand of what is out there and what’s happening. Then, Aldo Leopold
used that methodology and wrote about it, but it was not his major emphasis in his
writings. It was more the development of the overall philosophy of human relationship
to the environment and to the world in which we live. Whereas, I think Olaus was more
focusing on understanding both our biological relationships to the environment as well as
our mental and our emotional and philosophical relationships associated with natural
areas.
MR. KAYE: Being specifically related to what became the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge now; Did you have a chance to talk to Olaus about what his motivations may be
for what he did? What specific values that he thought this area possessed, that was
worthy of that effort?
DR. KLEIN: I can’t say that I questioned him specifically. I was a student then and
didn’t have probably the maturity to frame effective questions of a senior person who
had the knowledge to pass on this information. However, in our discussions with him
much and some of this definitely came across. In my follow up readings of some of his
writings it enabled me to better interpret what he had actually said when we were in
conversation on another. I think what all of us young students, working to become
wildlife biologists, felt when we were with him was that he shared his, and we shared our,
appreciation for opportunities to do the kind of work that he did and what we hoped to
do to a much greater extent than we had done. He already had the sense that we shared
some of his values. And we definitely knew that this was the case. But I think that
definitely some of his ideas did come across, and definitely influenced us well.
MR. KAYE: When we read Olaus’ writings about the Range, and it was largely advocacy
in the late 1950s. He seems to focus more on the area of maintaining evolutionary and
ecological processes than just its value for specific animals and wildlife. What is your
sense of the importance of these processes if maintaining a place where these could be
perpetuated?
DR. KLEIN: I think that, I guess that I share with him that feeling with him, for the
Arctic Refuge as an example, that to appreciate it’s values from a human perspective one
has to have an appreciation for what’s happening there; what the ecological relationships
are and what the whole system is. Rather than just feeling awe over being in a wild place.
Unfortunately or fortunately, whatever the case may be, it’s hard to separate the two.
You can go into places and have this feeling of awe that these places aren’t greatly altered
or with no apparent alteration by humans. That is, I admit, a value in itself. But it’s a
value that relates to a bias that already may exist in our minds about how we feel
environments should be. At least how a natural environment should be, especially we see
in it partly (biologists probably have a tendency to see) in a natural environment these
biological relationships and then it’s hard to draw the line between and understanding and
appreciation of those relationships and the beauty of unspoiled nature. They are hard to
separate. I am not sure that it is necessarily desirable to do it. I think Olaus Murie’s
major focus on protecting the Arctic Refuge was on the value of the Refuge as a place to
understand both what is going on there, and humans in relation to the environment. And
rather than just keeping it as unspoiled nature. He felt that humans could perhaps mark it
up a bit, but only to a very minimal amount in trying to understand it. In other words,
making tracks, possibly setting up vegetation plots and things of this nature. Science, he
felt, was critically important in a place like the Arctic Refuge to understand the
ecosystem relationships that exist there. A detailed understanding does require a human
presence. And human presence more so, rather than just walking through the area and
maybe appreciating nature, but without having a known impact on it.
MR. KAYE: I have been intrigued with constant use of the word evolution, and talking
about processes that have governed and created life as we know it. He used phrases like
that which suggest that beyond the relationships currently, he was perhaps interested in
maintaining an area where evolution could continue on it’s own way, unfolding in a
creative way that we don’t know. Do you have a sense of that?
DR. KLEIN: Yes, I think that’s one of the things that both Leopold and Murie…they
understand and believed that change is a natural process in nature. Humans frequently
accelerate changes or create changes in the environment some of which can be very
detrimental to humans well being as well as to the environmental processes that are going
on. But I think that Leopold and Murie both put a lot of emphasis on the fact that
changes occur and that instead of there being a balance in nature that was common.
People commonly spoke at the time of balances in nature of plants and animals in balance.
And animals in balance and don’t overeat their range, etc. And predators and prey are
somewhat in balance. I think it is more realistic, and I think they did too, to recognize
that there is an imbalance and fluctuations over time. And that basically on a human
perspective things may appear as balanced but there is a process of change going on. You
consider that, within species as evolution and within ecosystems you can use the term
evolution, but you can say that it is adaptation and change and development or perhaps,
“evolution” of the whole system. Change was a process that was going on. I think more
recently with a lot of research looking at the past geological and paleoentological history
of places like Alaska we recognize that there has been major change that has occurred just
since the Pleistocene glaciation not to mention the changes going on during the Pleistocene
glaciation, and that process of change is still going on. I have been working recently on
accessing, a project to try to access climate change in the Arctic on wildlife and how that
may influence management and conservation of wildlife in the Arctic. It is obvious that
there is a changing climate globally, but it is much more pronounced in the Arctic than
elsewhere. Change has occurred in Arctic in the past, and we’ve seen populations,
especially in the high Arctic Islands coming and going over time. Then, peri-Caribou, or
Musk Oxen as well as other species disappearing completely on some islands and then
repopulating themselves. We are talking about time intervals of fifty to a hundred years
rather than just a decade or two which from the standpoint of management of wildlife, or
more important obviously when people have to wait a hundred years to hunt Musk ox
again, those people are no longer around to do it.
MR. KAYE: Were you here in Fairbanks in 1957 when Olaus and Mardie came through
largely to promote the establishment of the Arctic Refuge?
DR. KLEIN: No, I wasn’t. I was working in southeast Alaska. I was aware that they
were through, and I was in touch with what was going on. I had been a student with
George Schaller who was an undergraduate student at the time when I was a graduate
student here. But he was like one of the grad students because he was so motivated
toward the outdoors and wildlife that we all hung around together.
MR. KAYE: Tell me more about George Schaller. What was your impression of him at
that time? Was he a standout among students? Was he different?
DR. KLEIN: George was a standout among students. I think he was so assertive and so
motivated. Probably, some others might have classified him as having tunnel vision so
that he was only focused on wildlife and nature. But those of us who knew him better
knew that this was not the case. He certainly had this tremendous vitality and energy and
he was the kind of young person who you couldn’t help but like even though you might
feel he was a competitor, and that he was going to outshine you. He was I remember
when he was a student he would take off frequently on the weekends by himself with a
twenty-two rifle and he’d been gone the whole weekend. This was in the summer and he
wouldn’t take any sleeping bag, or anything. He’d just take naps and stay light all of the
time. We’d ask him since he hadn’t taken any food, what he had eaten. He said, “I ate a
grouse”. “Well, did you build a fire?” “No, I just ate it raw.” George was just one of
those who would do anything. And some of it you could say was just to impress other
students, and that may have been part of it, but that was what George wanted; to explore.
Exploration was really important to George. Once, I think in the summer of 1953 or
1952, I was working doing some composition work on Caribou in the Naltina herd in the
Talketna Mountains. We needed a field assistant and George was sent out and worked
with us. He was just excellent. We’d be out counting Caribou and we’d have to take
turns looking through the spotting scope and the other taking notes. We had finished a
hard days work and George would hike back to our camp and have a meal. George would
rush through the meal and say, “Is it ok if I take off for a few hours?” By this time it’s
nine or ten o’clock at night. It’s light all of the time in summer of course. So George
takes off and does probably a fifteen-mile hike, comes back in time for maybe an hour or
two of sleep. He kept up an extensive schedule like that. And he’d always come back
and tell us what he had seen. A Snowy Owl nest or, some unique aspects of landscape,
or a lake that we didn’t even know existed, and birds that were nesting around there. He
was just a keen observer. He was certainly an enjoyable guy to have around.
MR. KAYE: Interesting! He told me his interview about his ten-day hike when he was
on the Sheenjeck expedition. He went off by himself basically exploring, and we talked a
little bit. I’d like to ask you about your sense, in terms of the Arctic Refuge, of it’s being
a place of recreation, of course that’s one of the purposes of it. Olaus talked about it.
But it was a very special kind of recreation, a place where one could explore and discover.
What is your sense of the recreational significance? What type of recreational experience
do you think the Arctic Refuge should provide?
DR. KLEIN: Well, I would say that it should provide a diversity of recreational
experiences because people aren’t all the same. I think that some people might be
attracted there to have a recreational experience, which enables them to appreciate some
of the mountain landscape and the wildlife and flora in the mountain landscape. And one
thing about the Arctic Refuge is that the focus has been primarily in recent years on the
coastal plain, which is so crucial to the whole ecosystem. But nevertheless there is
tremendous diversity from the Arctic coastal plain, the north slope of the Brooks Range
Mountains, the south slope with forests beginning and some of the plateau areas above
tree line near Arctic Village, and the big lake systems. All of these could a focus of
attention for people who want to have an experience. From my own interests, I am
interested by diversity and I like mountain landscapes. But I have done an awful lot of
work in the coastal plains because there is biological diversity even though the coastal
plain has really benign topography; it’s fascinating because it’s so important in the whole
complexity of ecosystem relationships. There are multiple species and vegetation and its
attractiveness to Caribou and other species. I’d say that it would be highly variable.
Some people like George Schaller and I’d probably put myself in that category, are at
heart also explorers. We like to see new things that we think are unexplored. And it’s
understood by other people that if we had been, a half a century or a century earlier, we
would have been pushing into the Arctic to try to reach the North Pole and those kinds of
things, just for the exploration expect of it; to have a goal that you want to achieve. I
think that it’s a combination of those, in all people. But it varies from individual to
individual. Some people are out to test themselves physically. I am not all that excited
about supporting that kind of use of wilderness areas. On the other hand, frequently
those people become real appreciative of the wilderness values once they experience
them.
MR. KAYE: We talked about the Muries, and Marshall and Schaller. How about some
of the Alaskans? The conservation community here that galvanized around the Arctic
Refuge issue through the Alaska Conservation Society. Were you involved in that issue
in that group of people?
DR. KLEIN: Yes, I was involved in it and perhaps not as much as some of the others
who stayed here while I was in southeast Alaska. I was out of it for a while, and when I
came back I became quite involved. Some of the earlier people like John Buckley, who
was a Unit Leader when I came here and was my Advisor during my Master’s work here.
He was certainly very active with sporting groups, sportsmen, and the Tanana Valley
Sportsman’s Association. He was very active in that. He was trying to get them to
appreciate the importance of sound biological research and its good towards wildlife
management. He recruited Fred Dean, I think, who was a faculty member here. He also
recruited Jim Reardon who was on the faculty as well. I think then there were others that
came later like Bob Wheedon who was with the Department of Fish and Game here and
played an important role in development of the conservation movement. Of course Celia
Hunter and Jeannie Wood were key players in the development. Those people were sort
of leaders within a larger community of environmentally oriented people largely
associated with the University, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and previously
the Fish and Wildlife Service. There was a real community of people, and that provided
sort of encouragement for everyone. There was a sense of community; people working
together for what they believed in. We were all certainly products of the influence of
people like the Muries and Aldo Leopold and others; Starker Leopold and Frank Darling
who spent time in Alaska had influence on us, as well as many others.
MR. KAYE: I’d like to get to Starker Leopold and Darling in a minute. As far as this
Fairbanks community goes; Jeannie Wood tells me that the Alaska Conservation Society
was the first Alaskan based conservation group. It was largely coalesced around the
effort to set aside what became Arctic Refuge. Do you recall that time, and how that
issue played into the development of an Alaskan based conservation community?
DR. KLEIN: That was definitely the case. And I think the Arctic Refuge was a focus for
that development. But it wasn’t just the Arctic Refuge. There were other issues that the
Alaska Conservation Society got involved with was this Project Chariot. It was the
proposal to use atomic bombs to blast a harbor in northwest Alaska, and which became
very controversial. It became controversial within the University system because the
University was involved in doing some of the research on the potential biological effects
of a nuclear blast there. There was some unfortunate division within the University
because money was coming in to support the research, which was good research but there
were constraints on how the findings of that research would be used. That’s when people
like Lesburg and Bill Pruitt, who was a neighbor of mine when he was here, those two
took very active role in bring this issue to the attention of the public. Ultimately ….
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